Parenting With A Cause

Genesis 24:1—9

Isaac and Rebecca

The passage today tells us how Abraham, the father of faith, “made provision” for his son, Isaac. Abraham requested his old servant to make an oath that he was to go back to Abraham’s place of origin--Aram, where his relatives were, to obtain a wife for the son.

Abraham only had one condition for choosing the ‘bride to be’, what is that?

She must leave her father house and come to Canaan!

Do the young people today accept this kind of “arranged marriage”? This “arranged marriage” reveals to us some important lessons of parenting!

To Ensure Children Put God First in Their Lives

God called Abraham to leave for the Promised Land – Canaan, and promised to bless him with the land and plenty descendants. This calling first appears in Genesis 12:1-3, the Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

The Abrahamic-promise second time appears in 13:14-16, the Lord said to Abraham, “Look as far as you can see in every direction—north and south, east and west. I am giving all this land, as far as you can see, to you and your descendants as a permanent possession. And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted!”

Since then the whole of Genesis story is concern with “begetting children”.

Abraham is old now, and Isaac is still single. As a result, God’s promise to Abraham for descendants and possession of land are at risk. Anyway, Abraham is faithful to God’s calling. He is very concern for God’s promise to come to the seed of Isaac. He makes way to ensure Isaac get married and the bride must be one from Aram, not Canaan.

The rationale for Abraham’s act is that, his seed Isaac or Isaac’s seed is not to be mixed with the seed of the Canaanites (v.3). What is the reason exactly?

Abraham’s desire reinforces the notion of the two lines of blessing and curse seen in (9:25—27) – “cursed be Canaan’ but “blessed be Shem.” Throughout the Genesis narratives thus far, the inhabitants of Canaan are considered to be under divine cursed for their iniquity; “the sins of the Amorites” (15:16). The seed of Abraham is to be kept separate from the seed of Canaan.

Furthermore, the promised seed of Abraham will inherit the land from God as a gift, but not through inter-marriage with the Canaanites and assimilation into the Canaanites community.

We today know we are God’s stewards that children are “inheritance” God entrusted us to take care of. We are to “make provisions” for our children, not only best education, condominium, car and etc; but also to safeguard our children from being corrupted, influenced by and assimilated into the way or the culture practiced by the seeds of the cursed ones, the ungodly ones, practices which are deemed immoral and sinful by the Scripture.

On the contrary, we are to guide and facilitate in many ways, so that they will remain in the blessed path of God. How to go about it?

The Bible is not a handbook for parenting. Most of us should have attended parenting courses. We know the methods of parenting, for example putting children in private schools or home schools.

Here, we just emphasis one thing, that is; we must instill the value in our children to honor God first on top of all the other undertakings. This is not an easy task because parents are prone to rank as priority the study and career of the children, but not their faith to God.

We can influence our children with our own examples and also through sharing and encouragement given to them. Like Abraham who is faithful to God’s calling, who makes God’s way the priority of life, we also are to remain faithful to God and ‘walk the talk’. Children could see parents’ good example and be influenced to put God first and think of the things of God’s kingdom.

Ensure Children Do not Lose Their Faith

Abraham insisted that the bride must come from Aram and Isaac must not leave the Promised Land—Canaan. The reason is because the seed of Abraham is not to return to the land of their fathers. The Promised Land is their home. There is to be no reversal of Abraham’s original act of faith and trust in God in leaving the land of his fathers.

Abraham had remained faithful to God’s call to leave behind his homeland. Now he made sure his descendants also do so, so that God’s blessing could be perpetuated to his descendants.

Today we, the parents have left the state of sinners—Egypt and now had come to be in the Lord. We have all the promises of blessing and salvation in the Lord. We also want our children remain in the Lord but not return to the sinner’s state.

But what if children are rebellious and they want to choose their own destiny which is departing from God? To answer that, let’s go to the third point.

Look to God’s Providence

The old servant replied Abraham by asking the question, “What if the young woman does not want to come to Canaan (v5)?”

Likewise we are stuck too; “what if the children refuse to serve the Lord? What if they are seeing the non-Christians, marrying the non-Christians? What if they reject the Christian faith and converted to other faith? What if they live a life just like the sinners of the world without taking heed of the Scripture?”

Abraham answered the servant in vv.7-8, “For the Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and my native land, solemnly promised to give this land to my descendants. He will send his angel ahead of you, and he will see to it that you find a wife there for my son. If she is unwilling to come back with you, then you are free from this oath of mine. But under no circumstances are you to take my son there.”

Abraham’s reply proves to be both prophetic, in that it anticipates the final outcome of the story, and thematic, in that it announces the central motif of the narrative: “divine providence”. For God is going before his servant to prepare his way. Abraham counts on God, but not on people. He acts on the basis of God’s promises!

We read in the following text that God indeed directed the servant through a miraculous adventure that leads to consummation of Isaac’s marriage with Rebecca. God is faithful to his covenant with Abraham. He intervenes to ensure all obstacles to the marriage are overcome.

Abraham’s command to the servant, “go and take a wife” (v4), is answered by Laban and Bethuel. “Here is Rebecca; take her and go”(v51), and fulfilled with the statement, “So the servant took Rebecca and went”(v61).

Abraham trusted God, depended on God but not on man, nor on the system. He planned and executed the plan according to God’s promise. As he was faithful to the covenant with God, he experienced God’s leading, comfort and blessing.

 Abraham answered the servant, “If she is unwilling to come back with you, then you are free from this oath of mine” tells us that the future bride herself, has to walk a step of faith herself. If she were to decline, it is a sign of her unworthiness in partaking of God’s promise.

As parents, we may prepare enough for the families or for the children specifically, in order that they could walk heading to the path and goal that we want. We do many things to ensure that they can be successful in life and also find favor in God. This is the faith in action by fulfilling human responsibility.

However, sometime things just don’t work out. Many children out of their seemingly mature, free will choice, had distant themselves from the way of the Lord.

At the end of the day, like Abraham, we as parents must be first faithful to God, and live a life that constantly trusting the Lord, believing that it is the grace of God, the divine providence that we can count on, by God’s grace; ‘the angels of the Lord would go before us, go before our children’.

In this way, even if they at some point of their lives go off tangent, departed from God’s way, yet they will be revived soon. This is called the divine initiative interplay with human responsibility.

Conclusion

Today we are facing intense secularization. Besides, children may be going through their rebellious phase of life, and many children are away from parental control as they work or study outstation. We must constantly pray for the children, must not give up hope. We need to continually trust in God and commit our children into the hand of God.

And the children themselves must also be responsible for their own faith by submitting to God’s rule. This is the model of biblical parenting which incorporate human participation, divine providence, and also personal accountability.